The Vanishing of A Continent: Gaeta 1 To Be Phased Out By End of 2026

 

 For the first time, Linden Lab will be doing away with one of the Mainland continents. 

 

On Wednesday, the Lab announced "A new chapter for Mainland."  The plan was to open 90 sims on the Zindra continent, which has not yet been finished, while the residents of Gaeta 1 are being asked to move. The reason the Lab gave was that "Adult mainland continues to operate at very high occupancy and shows consistent demand. At the same time, some General and Moderate mainland areas, including Gaeta 1, have seen lower overall use over time." And so rather than simply just raise the number of sims on Zindra, they made the decision to adjust "existing capacity to better reflect where Residents are most active today."

 

The Lab went on to say the change will start this month, April, expected to finish by "the end of 2026," and there are no plans to close other Mainland areas. They did say the change was to start "early April," but it was already the 15th when they made their announcement.

 

 Of the Second Life Mainland areas, Gaeta 1 and Zindra are distinguished by each having unfinished look. Of Gaeta 1, the southeast and east central areas were never completed. It's north of the Mainland northeast of Bellisseria, but not connected to it by sea sims, and distinguished by it's small size, 141 sims, smaller than a few private sim continents, and large amounts of abandoned land. The SL Wiki describes the land as being created in June 2008, with the north added a little later. 

 

The Yavascript pod tours gave the reason for the unfinished business as,  "Much of the land around here was being prepared for sale, as SL was expanding, in 2009, but as land supply exceeded demand, it stopped. ... In more recent years, mainland has become more popular, especially alongside roads and by water. Nonetheless, this continent was still never finished, as can clearly be seen from the shape of the map."

 

One other detail, the SL Wiki described Gaeta as the most underpopulated continent.  

 

 

The other unfinished continent, Zindra, is more famous for being the Adult-rated Mainland continent: All the sims are Adult-rated. The first of its land appeared in 2009, "and continued a few years later" according to the SL wiki. But development stopped before the southeast was finished. 

 

Besides that the buildings and the signs on the map show residents are free to explore their sexual sides, other than the unfinished corner the land is distinguished by a larger size than Gaeta, 348 sims, and for some reason being placed *far* away to the right of the other mainland sims. 

 

And it's the second most crowded of the Mainland continents, second only to Heterocera, with little abandoned land and high land prices. 

 

Two threads appeared in the forums about the topic, one in the Land forums by Linden Lab, the other in the General Discussion Forum. Naturally, there were a number of objections. 

 

"... being a many year resident of Gaeta I's lovely north coast. Nukeing Geata to create an expanded area of adult regions (which is also disconnected) doesn't make any sense to me. None of Geata I is adult at the moment and it's not clear to me that there's a shortage of adult parcels, so I'm not sure what problem this is actually solving."

 

"I am one of two landscapers, developers, and managers for Bimini Falls, a growing community sim that currently spans over 14 regions on Gaeta. Bimini Falls has been a long-term project that has taken over a year and a half of continuous landscaping, design, and development to reach its current state. The owner has invested significantly throughout this time, purchasing additional land multiple times as the community expanded and evolved. It is also important to recognize that the foundation of this work began long before my sister (the other landscaper) and I joined the project a year and a half ago. In total, this represents years of creative development, planning, and ongoing refinement. The financial investment from the owner—covering land purchases, upkeep, development costs, and our compensation—has been substantial. What makes this situation especially difficult is that Bimini Falls is not something that could simply be rebuilt elsewhere. Starting from scratch in a new location would require another one to two years of intensive work just to reach its current level of development, and even then, it would never truly be the same. The unique character, flow, and history built into the current regions cannot be replicated. In addition, there would be a significant loss of income from renters during the entire rebuilding process, further compounding the financial impact on the community and its owner. This situation is incredibly heartbreaking and deeply upsetting for everyone involved, as so much time, effort, and passion has been poured into bringing Bimini Falls to life." 

 

"As a former Gaeta I tenant who still has affection and nostalgic memories of Gaeta I, I think its utterly shameful and a backwards move by LL that will have Residents in Gaeta I and the other Mainland continents worried and fearing for the future. Why not just keep Gaeta I as it is and where it is now? Why are LL being so heartless? Is it just a case of in order to complete Zindra, another entire continent must be sacrificed for it? Unacceptable. Just no." 

 

"So wrecking a G or M rated community in Gaeta1 (which had been there 17 years) is totally fine with you, if it benefits an Adult rated community in Zindra?"

 

"Despite what is said in the reading, it feels like a small scale tester for a larger scale version later. The writing appears to be on the wall for mainland change and not the good kind." 

 

Some were open to the idea, "Optimally it'd be better if LL could finish both continents, but idk if the demand is there for more M regions with so much abandoned land on M continents, meanwhile Zindra's basically full. So... yeah. IMO this is a no-brainer, as long as existing landowners in Gaeta 1 have some way of recovering their investment." '

 

"This action will not be taken because they have nothing else to do during their working days.
The Lab has to get rid of parts of the grid that are running at a loss month after month and try to keep SL appealing for the vast majority of users I recon." 

 

"Zindra is so fugly it baffles me what would drive a non-land hogger person to the point of insanity where they'd voluntarily buy and stay and use land there." 

 

Prokofy Neva would comment, "Watch Gaeta land prices go up so you can get a free transfer to Zindra which will go for a fortune if landscaped." 

 

 Derrick Linden would answer the concerns, "Given the sizable amount of unowned mainland, increasing our overall mainland footprint isn't really something that's in the cards right now. After careful review, this felt like our best opportunity to shift some of our existing mainland resources for the long-term health of the mainland overall."

 

The Lab anticipated there would be lots of questions, and scheduled a Town Meeting for Monday April 20 at 11 AM at Town Hall Island1 (241/15/29). 

 

Stay tuned foe more information on this developing, and major, story.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Announcement: Bellisseria's Fifth Anniversary

 

 

"Get ready everyone. We're going to celebrate Bellisseria turning 5 and we're going BIG"

 

For most of the month of April, the Linden Home continent of Bellisseria will be celebrating it's fifth anniversary. From Tuesday April 2 to Tuesday April 30, Bellisseria Fairgrounds (and a special area) will be the scene of DJ music parties, live singers, dance performances, hunts, art shows, races, special family day events, and of course prizes and gifts

 

 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPBA1/171/249/25 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Whiskey%20Bay/172/6/24 (Fairgrounds Pier)

SL Video: "Terrain Model of the Bellisseria Continent in Second Life (January 2024)"

 

 

(click here if the video does not play)

From Eric Mondrain on January 20, "A terrain model I made showing Second Life’s Bellisseria continent in all its topographic glory, with a total of 2,541 regions as of January 20, 2024 (counting “Sandbox Bellisseria” and the Welcome Hub regions as well, just for good measure). [https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Lind...] I gathered each region’s elevation data at half-meter X and Y intervals using an interconnected set of LSL scripts, feeding that data to my computer via a series of HTTP requests, then (re)constructed and textured the terrain model(s) in Blender using its incredibly powerful Python API [https://docs.blender.org/api/current/...]. The textures here can be downloaded individually from Second Life’s official map servers [https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Lind...]. Note: It took my revised scripts a little over 18 hours to gather the elevation data for the entire continent (compared to the 190-ish hours that it probably would have taken when I first started this terrain modeling project, before I optimized the process). At the original level of detail, Bellisseria’s topography would be over 1.3 billion triangles; for the purposes of this video (and to prevent my laptop from exploding), I decimated each region’s mesh so that the model in Blender totaled only about 13 million triangles instead."

Bellisseria Land Expansion To South

It's been a few months since we last talked about new areas in the Bellisseria continent. When I last dropped by in very early December, I hadn't noticed any major changes. But it seems since then, the Moles have been very busy.

The land that was originally planned for the south has finally been filled in. But the terraforming didn't stop there. The Moles made a huge extension to the south, dividing it from the north and central lands with a river. When the first land of the new continent was placed, while it was enabled to sail from the continent of Jeogeot to the south to it, it took a lot of ocean. Now just a couple sims separate the two continents.

Besides the continental expansion, a number of islands have also been placed. Some of these are for houseboats, including another "pickle" island. And there are various smaller islands which were placed for scenery.

Looking around, the new land not only had houses and houseboats, but some already had people inside. Looks like at least some of this new area has already been open for Premium residents to grab.

So what's next for Bellisseria? Hard to say. The Lab could easily make a new continent and/or houseboat islands to it's east. But the area has already attracted a number of residents whom have been banding together into a community. The new continent has been Linden Lab's biggest success this year. What they'll try for 2020, it'll be interesting to see.

Bixyl Shuftan

Update on Bellisseria For Mid-August 2019

It's been about a year since the "SSP" landmass first appeared on the map.  In April, the real new continent appeared on the Grid, and became known as Bellisseria. Since then, the moles have continued to work on and expand both the land, and build the Linden homes on them. In early June came an island that would become it's community center.

Since then, the work on Bellisseria continues. More of the continent's southeast landmass has been built, and a second "pickle" island has been added off the coast to the southeast, to go with the "squishy pickle" to the northeast.

And as the land has been developed, the roads, piers, and Linden Homes aren't too far behind. The land ones initially appear as green shapes, then take familiar form with green fields around them and orange squares on top. There's also what looks like coding over the homes, both the land homes and houseboats.

When someone asked on the forums how long does it take the Lab to make the homes, Quartz Linden answered:

Each region in Bellissaria is unique,  designed and laid out individually.   When we make new regions to add to Bellissaria, we start with a completely new one, flat as pool table and completely featureless.    Each one needs terraforming and dividing up into parcels, and roads laying,  and slips for the boats, and then decorating with trees, flowers, rocks, fences and whatever else for the parcels and then some general landscaping on the remaining LDPW land plus some community areas building here and there.   



That's all done by teams of LDPW Moles, working together, and pretty much flat out.    It involves several passes, and several QA inspections at different stages in the process. That's what takes the time,  and it's because the terraforming and decorating is done with such care and attention to detail that the regions look as good as they do.   

... everything we put out on a region is made and scripted by LDPW Moles, and those of us who work primarily in content creation for Bellissaria rather than setting up the regions are already well advanced into creating items for future themes.

There was one build on the southeast island that got my attention. In the middle of the place were three towers that bore a resemblance to a nuclear reactor. Just what the towers are for can only be speculated on at this point.

As the land continues to grow, the people making the continent their virtual home and their friends have formed a community that continues to do well. It's not just human avatars, but also furs, ferals, and others. The Bellisserians channel on Discord has numerous entries every day, and brings attention to places such as the Belli's Blues Cafe (left). Creative residents have been making add-ons to Linden Homes, such as pools, porches, sheds, and more.

Daniel Voyager predicted the continent's land would be completed before Spring 2020. He very well may be right. We'll report more on the continent as things develop.

Last picture from Bellisserians Discord channel

Bixyl Shuftan

Note: I tried getting a good picture of the map showing Bellisseria in relation to nearby continents. But something kept the sims from view when smaller than shown on the picture, and even then many of the sims would vanish after a few seconds.

Bellisseria Becoming A Community

More and more, the new continent Bellisseria has been seeing development. It's not just the development of the land and houses, of which the moles have done a great job. But more and more, the people have not just been making a home there, but coming together as a community to hold events together. Gemma Cleanslate dropped in to see the residents organize some events there from a "Lawn Chair Larry" race to Fourth of July festivities at the new Bellisseria Fairgrounds.

Read Gemma's story in Places.

Bellisseria: The New Linden Homes Continent

It's been about a month since the newest continent, Bellisseria, began appearing on the map. The location of the new Linden Homes, those available were quickly snapped up, almost all occupied in less than two days. The homes come in two kinds, neighborhood houses, and the houseboats. The latter have been the focus of more than a little attention. Gemma Cleanslate recently went to the new land to take a look.

Read Gemma's article in Places.